barking mad, and painters, too

Art - William Butler Yeats’s Relationship With Maud Gonne Is Explored at the National Library of Ireland - NYTimes.com -- Here's a New York TIMES rundown on William Butler Yeats, Yeats Meets the Digital Age, Full of Passionate Intensity. There are things in this article we didn't cover in school, plus links and digital content related to the on-going exhibit at the National Library of Ireland.

learning from Belfast

Belfast: Open for Business -- There's a lot to learn here in this story of Northern Ireland's emergence from The Troubles and decades of dependence on the public sector for jobs. The reasons for their being attractive now include stability, a well-educated English-speaking workforce, and proximity to financial centers in Dublin, from which they get the overflow. Throughout the article the discussion focuses on relative costs and value.

B movie of the week: The Boondock Saints

Netflix downloads are becoming a staple of our weekend. B movies have taken the place of drinking through the wee hours. Earlier this morning, The Boondock Saints graced our screen. Gloria thinks it may set some sort of record for the most gratuitous use of the F-word, but I think it may have been surpassed by another early-morning Netflix download about a post-nuclear Elvis impersonator and samurai on his way across the wasteland to Las Vegas, Six String Samurai.

Such comparisons aside, The Boondock Saints is some good entertainment. I guess there's an active argument going on as to whether it qualifies as a cult classic, but that misses the point: The film's a hoot. The two brothers McManus, Billy Connolly as Il Duce, who turns out the be their long-lost dad, Willem Dafoe camping and then in drag, it's all just too incredible. The film walks a thin line and bounces between horror and humor. The Wikipedia write-up covers a lot of ground.

Download it tonight, out of earshot of the little ones.

Claddagh Irish Pub Locations --minus Westlake

Claddagh Irish Pub - Claddagh Irish Pub Locations -- I was scheduled to attend a workshop at the Crocker Park Claddagh tomorrow.

Westlake
139 Crocker Park Boulevard
Westlake, OH 44145
(440) 250-8680

This afternoon, our sponsors left a message that the workshop would not occur as scheduled, since the Westlake Claddagh location was no longer doing business. Has anybody else heard anything else about Crocker Park's numbers or tenants? The link says the main office of this Claddagh Development Group is in Solon; I don't know if that's the only group that operates Claddagh Irish Pubs.

eejits

Eejit: Northern Ohio's idiot wind -- I've been reading Frank Delaney's Tipperary lately, and in it he talks of things Irish, things that have emigrated to this area as well, like Home Rule, blatant exploitation of one class by another, and eejits. I began to wonder about the residency issue, and began thinking that anybody who would lobby to give up residency in a city that not only has Home Rule but also controls all the water is a fool, and should be allowed to go seek his or her fortune elsewhere.

With the water issue, Lee Fisher came to mind, and how he, too, is part of the gale-force idiot wind blowing though here, trying to position himself as the arbiter of good sense and the broker of water rights for political and economic gain. As is his wont, he was heavy-handed again, and that works to our benefit. He's not different from all your other politicians; his impatience just gets the better of him quicker.

And now you also have an inkling of why our politicians allowed one class, the lenders, to exploit the American neighborhoods as they did: If they, and foreign investors, own the majority of the land, and we are their indentured servants, they can dispose of their water any way they please.

We've already been exploited on things that make our machines go, like oil, and we've paid for it and continue to pay for it dearly. Don't let them disenfranchise us on water, one of the things that make people go.

Remember: Oil makes our machines go, water makes people go (We'll have to work on rephrasing that a bit.). And remember: In the Great Lakes region, we are sitting on top of a lot of fresh-water assets. We are valuable now for the same reason we were valuable 100 and 200 years ago: our "natural" heritage, as in natural assets.

Our "built" heritage is something we need to conserve, as well, and that's what the lenders have been going after and what they now sit on top of and hold, letting it lie fallow because our governments allow it. Are you starting to see the connections?

Natural heritage. Built heritage. What makes us great. What makes us valuable.

Ireland forever

A roundup of notable Irish films from Kevin Cullen - Boston.com -- Kevin gives us 15 slides here of film picks for St. Patrick's Day. Renew your Irish in the comfort of your own home, quietly, safely. How do we reconcile having St. Patrick's Day during Lent anyway? Is there a dispensation, a free pass, a get-out-of-Lenten-jail card that creates a window of festive opportunity in the middle of the somber contemplations of Holy Week? Are Irish Catholics eternally conflicted just because of the calendar and doomed to a lifetime of substance abuse to cover over the wrenching angst and guilt?

There's another thing, too. Many of us have mixed allegiances when it comes to being Americans who also originally hail from Ireland. Take my grandfather, for instance. During the First World War, he applied for his US citizenship and had to appear before a judge, who asked him why a fine, strapping young man like himself wasn't in the Army. My grandfather's reply, "Because my country's not at war," put his US citizenship on hold for a good while.

Celtic rock: ignition, illumination

Upcoming.org: Whiskey Island Ramblers at Sullivan's Irish Pub (Saturday, February 10, 2007)--I got this from Jeff Schuler over on Upcoming.org. Looks interesting. Might be something to do in conjunction with Jim Morana's opening tonight just down the street.

The Whiskey Island Ramblers have been on a tear since '04 from Cleveland to Europe and back again playing original Celtic Rock and "Ramblerized" traditional songs. Fueled by drink and Celtic Rock their audiences tend to ignite at some point during the performance. Joe and Ed Feighan have been performing Traditional Irish songs since they were kids. The Feighan Brothers formed the Whiskey Island Ramblers as a Celtic Rock band for their favorite traditional songs and their original material. Most of their own songs are about real people and real events. Occasionally they venture into the Irish "other world" where ghosts, sprites, wraiths and the like dwell. Whiskey Island, at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, is where the Irish ancestors of the Feighans settled as immigrants from the famine and just in time for the industrial revolution. Cops, bus drivers, chimney sweeps, bartenders, gabbers, hot dog vendors, sailors, judges, mayors, parents, drinking buddies, girlfriends, lawyers, bumbling bureaucrats and musicians who drive around in junked up cars make their apearance on Whiskey Island and the surrounding industrial landscape. The Whiskey Island Ramblers illuminate these characters in song keeping in stride with the legacy of their storytelling ancestors who arrived on Whiskey Island nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. Check out the band at www.whiskeyislandramblers.com and www.erintel.com.

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